


Blistered

by daughterofalderaan



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Gen, Mild Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25834402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daughterofalderaan/pseuds/daughterofalderaan
Summary: Miller has a run-in with a poisonous plant. All her scratching starts to drive Hardy up the wall.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller
Comments: 7
Kudos: 36





	Blistered

**Author's Note:**

> A post-series 2 world where Alec doesn’t leave Broadchurch quite so fast and they’re both back as DI and DS.
> 
> just found out late in the game that there aint poison ivy in the UK but I am unwilling to spend any more time researching allergic skin reactions to plants so just fill in your favorite bastard plant that could grow irl in southwest england & itll be grand

He’d noticed it at work on Friday. Miller had been sitting in his office, drumming her fingers on the couch arm, when he saw a patch of bumps on her wrist, peeking out from where her blazer ended. He hadn’t said anything about it.

It was Sunday, and Miller stopped by his place so they could get some extra work done. She sat down and hung her bag on the back of the chair. Notably, she was wearing a dress. It was sleeveless and flowy. More notably, her limbs were littered with nasty pink splotches. 

She picked up the file he’d left for her on the table and started reading it.

“Miller…”

She looked up. “What?”

He pointed at her vaguely.

She sighed. “It's poison ivy. I had the audacity to try fixing up the garden. It was my first time being out there, _since_.”

 _Since_ Joe last lived in her house, she meant. _Since_ Hardy himself had been back there and led her husband away in handcuffs.

“At first it wasn’t much worse than if a bunch of mosquitos had bit me up. But over the weekend it started looking monstrous, and today it’s just _so_ itchy.” She pointed at her dress. “I did initially have normal clothes on.”

“What, dresses are _abnormal_?”

“Well. No, but feels a bit off wearing one while doing work. It’d just been so annoying having sleeves and trouser legs aggravating my skin.” 

“Why’re the rashes so shiny?”

“I don’t know, do I look like a medical practitioner?”

Hardy shook his head. 

He sat on his couch and read the case file, but it was difficult to concentrate due the rhythmic sound that plagued his ears. Miller was scratching herself vigorously. 

After a few minutes, he inhaled a little too loudly. 

“Don’t you scold me for itching a bit, not when you’re the one who’s terrible at taking care of yourself.” She simultaneously clawed at her right forearm with her left hand and her left knee with her right hand. 

“I can’t stay on task with the racket! Maybe I’d be able to easily ignore if it sound was coming from, I don’t know, a tree branch hitting against my window from the wind. But it’s hard to stay focused when I know the source of the noise is someone in my sitting room looking they’re trying to rip their skin off.”

“Yeah well, I feel like ripping my skin off.”

“Could you just, rub it gently or something?”

“Ok, I’ll try.” She started using the pads of her fingers to rub her arms. However, a few minutes later she was shoving the heel of her palms back and forth over her thighs like she was trying to sand them down. 

“Miller, just go to the pharmacy. Get something to qwell the itchiness.”

“Fine. Why don’t we go for lunch as well, get takeaway from the Indian place next to the pharmacy?” Upon seeing the face Hardy made, she said “ _I’ll_ eat some Indian food, and _you_ can just sit there miserably.”

He rolled his eyes, but got up. Miller drove with one hand on her wheel, and the other scratching at her abdomen.

When they reached the town centre, Miller stuffed money into his hand. “Here’s a tenner, could you get the anti-itch thing for me while I order the food?”

When he looked at her funny, she said “The man who works there very chatty and I really don’t want to get into why I look like Po from the Teletubbies with him.”

Hardy assumed that “Po” must be the red one.

After he made the purchase at the pharmacy, got a banana from a fruit stand, and she got her food, they sat side-by-side along the marina. He handed Miller her change, a tube of anti-itch gel, and nail clippers. 

“What’s this!”

“Clip your nails, for my sake,” he replied.

Miller flicked open the tube and squirted some of the gel onto her arm. 

“Oh, Christ, wasn’t expecting it to be practically liquid.” She squirted again. “It's like the watery stuff that comes out of the mustard container when you haven't shaken it properly.” She rubbed it all in, then propped her foot up on the ledge to start working on her legs. 

He finished his banana by the time she opened up the takeaway container. 

“Want a samosa?” She shook it in front of his nose.

“It's fried.”

“Mhmmm.”

“That stuff just doesn't sit well in my stomach.”

“Right. Well, at least you’re giving me a reason. Used to think you didn’t accept food to messing around with me.” She retracted her arm and took a bite.

“Should you be eating with your hands after touching that stuff?”

“Hmm, suppose not.” She used a napkin to hold the samosa.

Miller chomped on her meal while he stared out at the water. After a couple of minutes, she said “It’s just really shitty that I had to go and get punished again because of Joe. 

Hardy looked at her. He couldn't remember the last time she’d mentioned him by name. She didn’t have to; he always knew when she was referencing him. 

“Joe was always been the one with the green thumb. Flowers and greenery are nice and all but I just can't be bothered with the maintenance. The garden’s just gotten so out of hand, it looks like the Amazon back there—you've seen it.”

“Aye,” he confirmed

“Yeah, dunno, I looked outside from my bedroom the other day and really saw how overgrown everything was. I’ve just been so habituated to things being in shambles. It just infuriated me to think that this is another mess I’m left to clean up, when I wasn't even the one who planted anything.” 

Miller took another bite, and continued. “Don't call me mad, but I went out there and I started ripping weeds and plants out of the ground. With my bare hands. I couldn’t even be bothered to go searching for gloves. I had known back in the day that some of this crap was starting to crop up on the edge of the property. Obviously didn't cross my mind to be careful of poisonous plants whilst… rage gardening.”

“I couldn’t picture you _non_ -rage gardening.”

“Great, thanks.”

“For what it’s worth, some people punch holes in their wall, so your stress-relieving technique sounds alright.”

“I'll tell my therapist that. ‘No, Daphne, I wasn’t absolutely out of my mind. I was just using a stress-relief technique.” She started laughing, but was interrupted by someone who was mooring a boat on the other end of the marina. The man called out: “Hiya, Ellie!” He then looked Hardy as well. “Alright, Mr. Hardy?”

She lifted her hand in a wave. The man smiled and continued docking his boat.

“Who the hell is that?” he asked.

“Erm, Dimitry Pearson, I knew him in sixth form.” She finished the last of her food. “You don't have to be so alarmed every time someone knows who you are—everybody in Broadchurch knows who you are.” 

An unfortunate byproduct of the Latimer case. 

Miller reached down to scratch at her ankle. “It is lousy that you have to deal with _this_ on top of everything.”

“Yeah,” she said. She was getting better at not shoving away his empathy. “Whenever I spot a pimpernel or whatever they’re called, I just think ‘ eurgh.’ It reminds me of _him_. Every day, they stare at me from outside my kitchen window.”

She dusted crumbs off her lap and abruptly hopped off the ledge onto the ground. “Ready?” she asked. 

He stepped down and followed her back to the car. 

Back at his place, they worked for a couple hours until was time for her to go pick up her boys.

She got up, pushed the chair in, and asked “Don’t you think it’s funny how plants are alive like we are?”

He was taken aback for a moment, then said “They can hardly be classified as being in the same bracket as humans.”

“No, course not. They’re still living, though. Still trying to stay alive. Craning their bloody necks towards the sun, trying to get enough light so they don’t die.”

“Plants don’t have n—“

“Oh come off it, you know what I mean.”

Hardy shrugged acquiescently. “Is your skin alright? You haven’t been scratching nearly as much.”

“Feels loads better than this morning. It’s a weird sensation actually because the top of my skin’s sort of numb, but itch not feels deeper down, so it’s like I can’t satisfy the sensation to itch. Still, it helps. But unfortunately I have got a massive patch of it on my arsecheek.”

“I did not need to know that.”

“Yes you did.” She grabbed her satchel. “Well, I’m off.” 

“Wear gloves next time,” he said.

She smiled and clicked the door shut.

**Author's Note:**

> Donate to support black trans lives  
> [transhousingcoalition.org](transhousingcoalition.org)  
> [theokraproject.com](theokraproject.com)
> 
> I'm on tumblr over at [freetobegrace](https://freetobegrace.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Leave comment if you enjoyed :)


End file.
